Limousine Motor Tours

Mercedes Limousine

These are excerpts from the Autouniversum webiste.

For me, the Mercedes-Benz 600 will always be the gold standard by which large passenger cars are judged. By virtue of its size the 600 was imposing and magisterial, but due to its simple and elegant minimalist design, it was in no way ostentatious. It could be thought of as a Bauhaus limousine built to the less is more and God is in the details tenets of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

A dramatic and unexpected move by Mercedes, the new 600 represented a rank a number of steps above its previous flagship sedan, the 300SEL “Heckflosse” (Fintail). The standard short-wheelbase 600 was fully 56 cm (22 inches) longer than the long-wheelbase version of the 300 and its V8 engine, at 6.3 litres, was over double the capacity of the 300SEL’s 3.0 litre six.

A separate hydraulic system was used to energize, by push button control, the front and rear power seats, power windows, sunroof, power boot lid (up and down) and power-assisted door closing (one didn’t slam the doors of a 600, just eased them to within a few millimetres of closing, the hydraulics performed the final closing and latching). The system operated at an amazing 175 bar (2,500 psi) and each vehicle contained a network of nearly 300 meters of hydraulic tubing. As a result, when moving the seats, or raising a window, the pedestrian whirr of an electric motor was never heard, only the sound of silence.